A simple farmer receives a horse from the gods, a man sells ice creams named after missing schoolkids, the demolition of a hotel brings an old horror to light, a wounded soldier finds the real enemy is in his own camp, a family inherits a peculiar r...
"They found her out there in the lane," the old man said.
"Who?"
"The daughter. They couldn't identify her at first. Just bones you see. Picked clean."
David tried to reconcile this with the girl in the photo, and for a while his mouth was too dry to speak. "She could've been dead a long time," he managed.
The old man shook his head. "Three people saw her alive the day before."
"Kettle?"
"Nar. He worked in the bar that night, dozens of people saw him. Was seeing a woman - she was with him the rest of the night. All on the reports. I got interested when I first bought the place. Did some digging around." He smiled ghoulishly. The skin seemed to have fallen from his cheeks and pooled around his neck, where it hung like a turkey's wattles. "They never solved it. The pub attracted a rough crowd in those days: whalers, miners, fishermen. People blew in, blew out."
The hail had stopped while they were upstairs; now there was just a dusty, antiquarian silence. David wondered if Molly was waiting around the other side of the doorway, listening.
"Kettle closed the pub after that," the old man said. "Nobody saw him for a long time. Seemed like someone was doing work on the pub though. Then it stopped. Couple of years passed and nothing. Kettle must've been living here the whole time, slowly running out of money. His debts piled up. They must've got sick of sending him letters and sent someone to repossess the pub."
David glanced at his watch. The inspection had taken less time that he had thought it would, but he had to be at a site on the other side of the city by three.
"They couldn't get in," the old man went on. "He'd nailed the doors shut, boarded the windows. Refused to come out. Said he'd shoot anyone who came through the door. So they called the police. Cops broke down the door. Kettle had an empty shotgun. Babbling about monsters in the walls. They put him in an asylum. He didn't live out the year."
"How'd he die?"
The old man shrugged.
"What happened to the hotel?"
"He had no family, so when he died it went to the Crown. They hung onto it for a while, then sold it in 1871." He finally looked up at David. "This new owner – not going to change his mind is he?"
"Already has approval. We start next week. Week after that it'll be gone."
"Good."
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Thus endeth the Penultimate Chapter of the Steam Packet Demolition.
